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Part 5 of 5
GOAT Volume 2 Series
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We are born looking like our parents, but we die looking like our decisions. Our DNA may determine our traits, but our decisions determine our trajectory. This is a fundamental truth that shapes every aspect of our spiritual journey.
Even the devil can't destroy our life without us participating in our destruction through our decisions. Throughout Scripture, we see this pattern consistently: Satan's strategy has always been self-sabotage through influencing our choices, not through direct destruction.
In the Garden of Eden, Satan did not directly destroy Adam and Eve's life. He influenced them to make a decision that destroyed it. The same pattern appears throughout Scripture:
As it was for them, so it is for us. The devil can't destroy you, but your decisions can.
When we consistently engage in self-sabotaging behavior, we have unconsciously become the enemy's assistant. But there is a season coming—perhaps it is your season right now—where you will refuse to continue helping the devil hurt you.
If you're getting ready to make a decision to quit sabotaging your own joy, quit sabotaging your own peace, quit subjecting yourself to exploitation and abuse, quit playing yourself small, and quit blocking your own blessing—this message is for you.
But if we're going to quit, we need more than grit. We need coaching. We need more than conviction. We need instruction. We need more than inspiration. We need guidance.
The good news is that Jesus, the Goat (the Greatest of All Time), who is also a Lamb, wants to guide us on how to stop self-sabotaging behavior. He's the only one in Scripture who didn't self-sabotage. What Satan tried in the garden with Adam, he tried in the wilderness with Jesus—and it didn't work. Therefore, Jesus is qualified to teach us how to not sabotage our own destiny.
Certain seasons of life make us more prone to self-sabotage than others. One of these seasons is when you're experiencing a storm.
In Mark 4:35-41, Jesus and his disciples get into a boat. Jesus had just spent the day teaching parables about the kingdom of God—about living life the king's way. When evening came, he said to the disciples, "Let us go over to the other side."
"That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, let us go over to the other side. And leaving the crowd behind, they took him along just as he was in the boat. There were also other boats with him, and a furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him up and said, 'Teacher, don't you care if we drown?' He got up, rebuked the wind, and said to the waves, 'Quiet or peace. Be still.' Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. And he said to his disciples, 'Why are you so afraid? Don't miss this. Do you still have no faith?'"
Evening represents the end of a day, which can also represent the end of yourself—a time where you have exhausted your physical and emotional resources. Your level of resistance is diminished. Some fights you don't feel like fighting when you're tired. You've worked all day, people got on your nerves, you've been stressed and under pressure all day.
Spirituall, evening can represent a time in our life where we have exhausted our own emotional resources and we no longer have the energy for insubordination. God says, "I'm going to talk now because you're too tired to fight me." There are some words God only releases when we're at a place where we're no longer wrestling to receive them.
Consider Jonah: In chapter one, Jonah gets a word from God that he runs from. But after being caught in a storm, swallowed by a whale, and tossed into the sea, God gives him the same word in chapter two. The word he ran from in chapter one is the word he ran with in chapter two. God will use chapters two and three to wear you down so you're ready for what he's got to say in chapter four.
"Let us go over to the other side." Notice the word is us, not just me. This isn't a personal word—it's a corporate word. Corporate doesn't mean business entity; it comes from the Latin word corpus, meaning body. So a corporate anointing is an anointing on the body, not on a business.
This isn't a me blessing. This is a we blessing. God is saying, "Let us." Some words are corporate invitations. He's not just getting ready to do it for me; he's getting ready to do it for us.
But here's the key for the disciples: they had to know who "us" is. Some of our problem is we haven't discerned who "us" is. We're trying to put people in the boat who don't belong in that boat. We're trying to take them to a place they don't really want to go. Some people are in the boat not because they don't want to go, but because they don't want to be left.
Jesus says, "Let us go to the other side." The nature of divine instruction is specific and ambiguous at the same time. It's time to go—yes. Where are we going? The other side. Where? The other side.
This is challenging for those of us who thrive on detail. But here's the dynamic: God will give you enough to move on, but not enough to stop listening. He'll give you enough specificity to move on, but he won't give you too much detail because he wants to keep you listening.
The text says, "Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along just as he was in the boat." Sometimes you can't go with Jesus unless you're willing to leave the crowd. Following Jesus is actually a minority activity. Most people won't. Our desire to feel normal can be the reason we end up stuck. You're not fighting obedience; you're fighting the abnormal nature of the instruction.
Divine instruction from God will expose codependency on people. You don't know if you're codependent until something threatens your dependency. Abraham had to get away from his family. You have to be willing to leave the crowd.
They get in the boat and a furious squall comes up. The waves break over the boat, and it's nearly swamped. The Sea of Galilee was prone to sudden, unpredictable storms.
Literally, they experience a storm. But metaphorically, storms represent unexpected seasons of pain, pressure, and perplexity that produce a desire for relief—and that desire for relief can cause us to make decisions without wisdom.
The presence of pain will produce the desire for relief. And the desire for relief can tempt us to make decisions without wisdom. We'll trade long-term healing for short-term numbing—that is self-sabotage.
Then there are seasons of pressure. Pressure makes us think speed is better than strategy. Pressure will have us making quick decisions to fix a problem, but a bad decision creates another problem. We're trying to fix one problem but creating another.
And there's panic. Panic often causes us to make panic moves. And panic moves often produce permanent messes.
Then there's perplexity—fog and confusion. This can cause us to make decisions in the dark. When you're confused and in the dark making decisions, what you think is a door might be a ditch.
Pain, pressure, and perplexity make us prone to self-sabotage.
If you objectively take a mental trip down memory lane and evaluate some of the worst decisions you have made in your entire life, you'll likely find that many of them were made during seasons of pain, under pressure, or dealing with perplexity and confusion.
Because storms are unpredictable and in some sense inevitable, we can't always have storm prevention. This means we've got to have storm management. This is what Jesus models for us in the text.
Notice this: the disciples and Jesus are in the same boat, in the same sea, in the same storm. But they have two different reactions. The disciples are screaming, but Jesus is sleeping. They're in the same storm, but it's two different reactions.
The disciples are panicking, but Jesus is at peace.
I don't want to learn from the disciples in this storm because I know how to panic. I know how to worry. I want to learn how to sleep when the rain is falling. I want to learn how to sleep when the wind is blowing. I want to learn how to sleep when the lightning is flashing.
Jesus models the third way for storm management. There are three ways to manage storms:
Culture's way: React emotionally and impulsively. When the storm comes, freak out.
Church's way: Mask the pain with platitudes and act like you already are where God wants to use the storm to take you. "I'm strong. I'm fine. I'm blessed." But if you're not honest about where you are, God can't use the storm to actually make you what you're pretending to be.
The king's way: See the storm, face the fear, and then submit to the Savior. I see the storm. I face the fear. But I submit to the Savior. It means I am not going to engage in behavior that the Savior does not endorse in an attempt to get relief from the storm. I must stay submitted.
Why? Because if I stay submitted in the storm, eventually the Savior is going to make the storm submit to him. Whatever's stressing you has got to submit to him. Whatever's bothering you has got to bow to him. If you will submit to the king in the storm, the king will make the storm submit to him.
Jesus woke up and spoke to the thing that was stressing his disciples. He said, "Peace, be still." Because whatever's bothering you has got to bow to Jesus if you will submit to the king in the storm.
Some people are trying to walk on water without a divine invitation. The disciples were only at sea because they obeyed the word. Their obedience led to their adversity.
In the Bible, you see people like Jonah who are in a storm because they didn't do what God said. And you have people like the disciples in this text who are in a storm because they did do what God said.
When you get a word, the giver of the word goes with you. People are struggling on the sea because they didn't get a word on the shore. Pharaoh chasing the Israelites through the Red Sea teaches us that you'll drown if you try to follow a word God didn't give you.
Mark places this story in the midst of a parabolic discourse where Jesus had just finished teaching about faith. So when he asks, "Where is your faith?" it's a rational question because he had just spent an entire day teaching on it.
When he says, "Do you still have no faith?" he's saying, "All this time with me and all this teaching from me, you shouldn't be reacting like this to a storm."
Just because the weather changed doesn't mean the word did. The word isn't weather-dependent. The storm on the sea will challenge the words you heard on the shore. God, did you really tell me? But the answer is yes—he really did.
The disciples say, "Rabbi, don't you care that we're perishing?" How are you present and not performing? The absence of your action is causing me to question the quality of your care. How can you say you care for me and you're watching me go through this?
You're going to experience seasons where you've got to deal with contradictions:
Conquer your contradictions by refusing to place periods where God's placed commas. I hadn't done it yet. God's not finished. The story's not over. The word's still in effect; I'm just in the middle of the sentence.
Even when you don't have clarity for action, even when you don't know what you've got to do, you need to know what you're not going to do.
Here is the one thing the disciples did right: They stayed in the boat and they woke up the Savior. They stayed in the boat and they woke up the Savior.
When you don't know what to do, stay in the boat with Jesus and wake up the Savior. Every time you pray, you're waking him up. Every time you praise, you're waking him up. And when you wake him up, he speaks to the thing that is threatening you on the sea—the storm.
The storm can't destroy you. But you can behave in the storm in ways that cause you to destroy yourself. God by his grace and providence is sending this series because your season and my season of self-sabotage has to come to an end.
And you decide when it ends.
You can't stop self-sabotage without the Savior. My question to some of you is: Is Jesus actually on your boat? If he's not, I want to extend that invitation to you today to make a decision to make Jesus the leader of your life and the forgiver of your sin.
It's time for you to take your spiritual journey seriously and to say, "Jesus, for the rest of my life I need you to teach me how to live life your way. Storms are coming, but I need you to teach me how to sleep when everybody else is screaming."
